The storm, that against your casement drives,
In the little village below waylaid me.

And there I heard, with a secret delight,
Of your maladies physical and mental,
Which neither astonished nor dismayed me.
And I hastened hither, though late in the night,
To proffer my aid!

PRINCE HENRY, ironically.

For this you came!

Ah, how can I ever hope to requite
This honor from one so erudite?

LUCIFER.

The honor is mine, or will be when

I have cured your disease.

PRINCE HENRY.

What is your illness?

But not till then.

LUCIFER.

PRINCE HENRY.

It has no name.

A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame,
As in a kiln, burns in my veins,
Sending up vapors to the head;

My heart has become a dull lagoon,
Which a kind of leprosy drinks and drains;
I am accounted as one who is dead,
And, indeed, I think that I shall be soon.

LUCIFER.

And has Gordonius the Divine,

In his famous Lily of Medicine,
I see the book lies open before you, -
No remedy potent enough to restore you?

None whatever!

PRINCE HENRY.

LUCIFER.

The dead are dead,

And their oracles dumb, when questioned
Of the new diseases that human life
Evolves in its progress, rank and rife.
Consult the dead upon things that were,
But the living only on things that are.
Have you done this, by the appliance
And aid of doctors?

PRINCE HENRY.

Ay, whole schools

Of doctors, with their learned rules;

But the case is quite beyond their science.

Even the doctors of Salern

Send me back word they can discern

No cure for a malady like this,

Save one which in its nature is

Impossible, and cannot be!

LUCIFER, reading.

"Not to be cured, yet not incurable!

The only remedy that remains

Is the blood that flows from a maiden's veins,

Who of her own free will shall die,

And give her life as the price of yours!"

That is the strangest of all cures,

And one, I think, you will never try;

The prescription you may well put by,
As something impossible to find
Before the world itself shall end!
And yet who knows? One cannot say
That into some maiden's brain that kind
Of madness will not find its way.
Meanwhile permit me to recommend,
As the matter admits of no delay,
My wonderful Catholicon,

Of very subtile and magical powers!

PRINCE HENRY.

Purge with your nostrums and drugs infernal
The spouts and gargoyles of these towers,
Not me! My faith is utterly gone
In every power but the Power Supernal!
Pray tell me, of what school are you?

LUCIFER.

Both of the Old and of the New!
The school of Hermes Trismegistus,
Who uttered his oracles sublime
Before the Olympiads, in the dew
Of the early dawn and dusk of Time,
The reign of dateless old Hephæstus!
As northward, from its Nubian springs,
The Nile, for ever new and old,
Among the living and the dead,

Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled;
So, starting from its fountain-head
Under the lotus-leaves of Isis,
From the dead demigods of eld,
Through long, unbroken lines of kings
Its course the sacred art has held,
Unchecked, unchanged by man's devices.
This art the Arabian Geber taught,
And in alembics, finely wrought,

Distilling herbs and flowers, discovered

The secret that so long had hovered
Upon the misty verge of Truth,
The Elixir of Perpetual Youth,
Called Alcohol, in the Arab speech!
Like him, this wondrous lore I teach!

What! an adept?

PRINCE HENRY

LUCIFER.

Nor less, nor more!

PRINCE HENRY.

I am a reader of your books,

A lover of that mystic lore!

With such a piercing glance it looks
Into great Nature's open eye,
And sees within it trembling lie

The portrait of the Deity!

And yet, alas! with all my pains,
The secret and the mystery
Have baffled and eluded me,

Unseen the grand result remains!

LUCIFER, showing a flask.

Behold it here! this little flask

Contains the wonderful quintessence,
The perfect flower and efforescence,
Of all the knowledge man can ask!
Hold it up thus against the light!

PRINCE HENRY.

How limpid, pure, and crystalline,
How quick, and tremulous, and bright
The little wavelets dance and shine,
As were it the Water of Life in sooth!

LUCIFER.

It is! It assuages every pain,

Cures all disease, and gives again

То

age

the swift delights of youth.

Inhale its fragrance.

PRINCE HENRY.
It is sweet.

A thousand different odors meet
And mingle in its rare perfume,
Such as the winds of summer waft
At open windows through a room!

LUCIFER, pouring.

Let not the quantity alarm you;

You may drink all; it will not harm you.

PRINCE HENRY.

I am as one who on the brink

Of a dark river stands and sees

The waters flow, the landscape dim
Around him waver, wheel, and swim,
And, ere he plunges, stops to think
Into what whirlpools he may sink;
One moment pauses, and no more,
Then madly plunges from the shore!
Headlong into the mysteries
Of life and death I boldly leap,
Nor fear the fateful current's sweep,
Nor what in ambush lurks below!

For death is better than disease!

An ANGEL with an aolian harp hovers in the air.